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Edgar Allan Poe

I have read other book and I would like you to find mistakes in it. I suppose I will have much more mistakes than ussual – I many times didn’t know how to write the sentence and I think I was also changing tences instead of using still the same ones.
I hope you will try to help me. Here is they essay:

Lenka

The Fall of the House of Usher and other storiesEdgar Allan Poe
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809, and died in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1849. His parents were traveling actors. Before Poe was two years old, both of his parents died. John Allan, a Virginia businessman, and his wife agreed to look after young Poe. From 1815 to 1820, Poe lived in England with the Allans.
As Poe grew older, he and Allan disagreed about many things. Poe studied for a short time at the University of Virginia. But he had to leave school because Allan refused to give him enough money.
In 1827 Poe wrote his first book of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems. Soon after that, he became a soldier, using the name of Edgar A. Perry. He continued to write, and in 1829 his second book of poems, Al Aaraaf, came out.
In 1930 Allan helped Poe go to West Point, the famous school for soldiers, but Poe was later asked to leave. He did not mind because he did not llike the school or Allan’s plans for him. He wanted to write. In 1831, he wrote his third book, Poems.
Most of Poe’s early did not become famous. So he worked for newspapers to earn a little money. He moved to Baltimore and lived there with his aunt, Mrs. Clemn. He lived with her for a number of years, and then in 1836 he married her daughter, his cousin, Virginia. She was only fourteen. At this time Poe also began to write short stories for magazines. His first book of stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesyuqe, came out in 1839.
In 1845 Poe became well known for The Raven and Other Poems. He was almost always poor, though, and he was not often happy. Poe’s life was sometimes similar to his writing. He drank a lot and, like roderick Usher and many of the people in his storiesm he often fought with madness. When his wife died, in 1847, he drank more. All his life he suffered from his illness, of the body and the mind.
Poe did not live a long life, and it was a sad death. Many later writers, though, spoke very well of him. He was, they knew, very important to literature. The famous French writer, Baudelaire, liked Poe’s work very much, and wrote many of his stories and poems in French. The English writers Algernon Charles Swinburne and Oscar Wilde, and the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, also enjoyed Poe’s work. „Poe was a great writer to all people for all time,“ Yeats said. Sigmund freud was very interested in the way that Poe saw the dark side of the mind.
Today, Poe is known as one of the best early writers of scary stories, and of detective stories or murder mysteries. Famous writers like Stphen King and Clive Barker say that Poe was their greatest teacher.

This book contains five stories, two of them (just the two last ones) are detective stories. Here they are:
The Fall of the house of Usher
The Maelström (- a story about whirpool)
The Barrel of Amontillado
The murders in the Rue Morgue
The Stolen Letter

Substance:
I can’t describe all the stories, I would have to write really long time. But I can try to describe at least one of them.

The Barrel of Amontillado (note: Amontillado is a special type of wine)
This short story is about two men. The narrator of the story (first of the two men) wants to punish the other man called Fortunato for that he (Fortunato) did and said terrible things to him. Actually, Fortunato treats with the narrator like with his friend - he thinks they are old friends altough he doesn’t know the narrator hates him. The narrator meets Fortunato in a street in the city (it was just a big party for all the city) where they both live. Fortunato is known as a wine lover and wine expert, so the narrator tries to get Fortunato to a tomb of himself to find out if the wine he bought is really Amontillado.
Fortunato is so keen of the idea of drinking expensive and tasteful Amontillado that however he has a cough decides to go with the narrator to his tomb where he keeps the wine to be in a cold and dark. The narrator is very glad he managed Fortunato to go with him to his family, Montresors tomb. As they go there together nobody sees them – everyone is at the party. The narrator is pleased. On every tomb of Montresors is in Latin written: „Nobody can hurt me without punishment“. The narrator pretends a fear of Fortunato’s illness, cough. As Fortunato coughs more and more, the narrator asks him if he really wants to go with him. He could ask Luchesi (another wine expert) instead if the wine is really Amontillado. But Fortunato still wants to go on. The narrator offers Fortunato wine – it will help his cough before they got to the place where Amontillado is hidden. Fortunato drinks some bottles of the wine and laughs. Finally, they arrived at a large, deep cave in a rock. At the end of the big cave there was a smaller one. It was about one hundred and twenty centimetres deep, ninety centimetres wide, and two hundred centimetres high. It was very dark. The narrator tells Fortunato that Amontillado is in and eggs him on going in it. There are two metal rings in the rock and the narrator ties him to them in a second. Fortunato doesn’t understand what happens. The narrator builds a wall in front of the smaller cave where is Fortunato now. However Fortunato screams, the narrator continues in his punishment. Just when the narrator is placing the last stone to build the whole wall, he hears a terrible low laugh. The voice says: „ Ha! Ha! Ha! – He! He! He! This is a very good joke, an excellent joke. Ha! Ha! Ha! – He! He! He! WE will laugh about it often at your house when we are drinking wine together.“
If I understand this story good, I think the voice was Fortunato’s who was still expecting it was just a joke and couldn’t make it up. But when the narrator answers some other sentences, Fortunato doesn’t answer… Here the story ends. The narrator with his sick heart of the low laughing voice leaves the tombs and for fifty years nobody has visited the tombs again.

My own opinion: I loved these stories. The first three ones very scary stories and very great. The two last ones were detective stories and I liked on them that Poe wrote them really dramatic (also the scary stories) and with unexpected end. This is what I like. It’s one of the best books I have ever read (although it contained only 5 short stories). And in addition I prefer reading stories better than novels because they are shorter and you don‘t have to read 600 pages to know one (however long and perhaps interesting) story.

Actually, how old are your students? Do you teach those who go to study as an exchange student or those who just go to English courses and work as well as an au-pair or in any other job or even other sort of students?

I tecah all sorts of students. At the moment I'm teaching students who are in the UK to take post-graduate courses. I've had students who are here as au pairs, people who have come to live here, etc. I teach in college and university, so they are all adults.

Re: Edgar Allan Poe

The Barrel of Amontillado (note: Amontillado is a special type of wine)
This short story is about two men. The narrator of the story wants to punish the other man in the story called Fortunato for saying terrible things about and doing terrible things to him. Actually, Fortunato treats the narrator as a friend - he thinks they are old friends altough he doesn’t know the narrator hates him. The narrator meets Fortunato in a street in the city (there had just been a big party for all the city) where they both live. Fortunato is known as a wine lover and wine expert, so the narrator tries to get Fortunato to a tomb of himself to find out if the wine he bought is really Amontillado.
Fortunato is so keen on the idea of drinking expensive Amontillado that , though he has a cough, he decides to go with the narrator to his tomb where he keeps the wine to stay cold. The narrator is very glad that he managed to get Fortunato to go with him to his family, Montresors tomb. As they go there together nobody sees them – everyone is at the party. The narrator is pleased. On every tomb of Montresors is in Latin written: „Nobody can hurt me without punishment“. The narrator pretends a fear of Fortunato’s illness, the cough. As Fortunato coughs more and more, the narrator asks him if he really wants to go with him. He could ask Luchesi (another wine expert) instead if the wine is really Amontillado. But Fortunato still wants to go on. The narrator offers Fortunato wine – it will help his cough before they got to the place where the Amontillado is hidden. Fortunato drinks some bottles of the wine and laughs. Finally, they arrived at a large, deep cave. At the end of the big cave there was a smaller one. It was about one hundred and twenty centimetres deep, ninety centimetres wide, and two hundred centimetres high. It was very dark. The narrator tells Fortunato that Amontillado is in it and eggs him on to go inside. There are two metal rings in the rock and the narrator ties him to them in a second. Fortunato doesn’t understand what is happening. The narrator builds a wall in front of the smaller cave where is Fortunato now. No matter how Fortunato screams, the narrator continues his punishment. Just when the narrator is placing the last stone to build the whole wall, he hears a terrible low laugh. The voice says: „ Ha! Ha! Ha! – He! He! He! This is a very good joke, an excellent joke. Ha! Ha! Ha! – He! He! He! WE will laugh about it often at your house when we are drinking wine together.“
If I understand this story well, I think the voice was Fortunato’s who was still expecting it was just a joke and couldn’t make it up. But when the narrator says something else, Fortunato doesn’t answer… Here the story ends. The narrator with his sick heart of the low laughing voice leaving the tombs and for fifty years nobody has visited the tombs again.

My own opinion: I loved these stories. The first three ones very scary stories and very great. The two last ones were detective stories and I liked the fact that Poe made them really dramatic (also the scary stories) and with unexpected endings. This is what I like. It’s one of the best books I have ever read (although it contained only 5 short stories). And in addition I prefer reading stories better than novels because they are shorter and you don‘t have to read 600 pages to know one (however long and perhaps interesting) story.[/i]